


that'd be lovely

by nonbinarynino



Series: my LBSC fics! [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Birthday Party, Endgame Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, F/M, First Meetings, LBSC Sprint Fic, Languages and Linguistics, Social Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:28:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26701414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinarynino/pseuds/nonbinarynino
Summary: Luka struggles to speak coherent French to the cashier.For the LBSC Sprint Fic Challenge prompt: "Oh no, s/he's hot!"
Relationships: Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Series: my LBSC fics! [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943359
Comments: 12
Kudos: 118
Collections: LBSCSprintFicChallenge





	that'd be lovely

**Author's Note:**

> write me on tumblr! sapphicmarinette

JULEKA’S BIRTHDAY PARTY, TO-DO LIST:

  * Set up tables and chairs ✓
  * Get Rose to message those who haven’t RSVP’d ✓
  * Buy thank you cards
  * Get the cake from the Dupain bakery (at 11:00 _SHARP!!!!!)_



Luka inspects the stack of thank you cards in his hands. They’re black with little spiderwebs, and even though it isn’t anywhere near spooky season, he knows that they fit Juleka’s party aesthetic perfectly. He checks it off the list as he puts it into the shopping basket, (along with the last-minute napkins and decorations) slightly relaxed now that he knows he only has one more task to complete before he can go home and finalize everything. The party is this afternoon, and in order for the surprise to be as amazing as it can be, he has to get there well before Juleka does.

The cashier makes small talk with him as he checks out. Luka doesn’t know what to say, really, never having been much for the “ _such nice weather today!”_ conversations, but he makes do. He says, “it’s the perfect day for a concert!” and then leaves before they can ask him if he's actually going to a concert. Which, well, he isn't, but he kind of always wishes he was at one.

… He’s never claimed to be super eloquent. Not without his guitar, anyway. Being without it makes him feel like he has left one of his five senses at home.

He plugs in the directions to the Dupain bakery on his phone, pleased to realize that he’ll get there a few minutes early. The man he’d spoken to on the phone about Juleka’s birthday cake had been very nice, but also very firm about the fact that there would be nobody there to give Luka the cake after eleven in the morning. Luka would probably implode if Juleka ended up not having a birthday cake because of his tardiness, so being late is simply not an option.

He doesn’t know the majority of Juleka’s friends who have RSVP’d to the party, though he knows a few. He’s met Rose, of course, and he's heard about her constantly. If there’s anybody good enough for Juleka, it’s her, though he reckons it will take the both of them a few more years to figure that out. There’s Ivan and Mylène, as well, who he’s met while out and about a few times. They all seem friendly, and happy to accept Juleka. It’s a nice, stark contrast from a few years ago, so Luka is cautiously optimistic.

There are others coming, though, who he’s never met. There’s Alya, the Ladyblogger, and her friend Marinette, who’s apparently the class president. Two boys, Adrien and Nino, are supposed to come, too, though Rose says that sometimes Adrien has to back out of plans last minute due to his modeling commitments. Those seven classmates are the main ensemble, anyway. Rose had admitted to him on the phone this morning that she’d spread the word to “five, well, maybe ten” more people.

Luka just hopes it won’t make Juleka nervous. (And he hopes that Chloé, the one who made Juleka cry for twenty-five minutes straight last year, won’t show up to crash the show.)

The bakery looks closed, which freaks him out for a minute before he realizes that they’re only waiting on him before they close up. They have the special hours for today posted on the front door, (“ _Sorry for the inconvenience! We’ll be back in_ **3** _hours_!”) The man on the phone had explained why, something about a special event, but Luka had been too busy managing his phone anxiety to really pay attention.

He parks his bike outside, shrugging his bag over his shoulders so that it doesn’t get stolen. When he opens the front door, the first thing that he notices are the smells that accompany most bakeries - vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar. It's so cold outside, especially since he'd been biking through the breeze, that upon walking in, he feels as though he’s overheating. He wipes his forehead, smiles at the ground to practice for when he talks to the man from the phone, and looks up-

Behind the counter is not the man on the phone that he’d been expecting. Instead, it’s a teenage girl, probably about Juleka’s age. She has black hair tied back into pigtails, and a concentrated look on her face as she moves a cake box onto the front counter. She’s short, a fact that is accentuated by how huge the cake box is, and… she’s cute. She’s incredibly, wildly cute.

 _Oh, no,_ Luka thinks. He imagines a future where he ends up dropping the cake on the bakery floor, and this pretty girl laughs at him. He imagines a future where he stutters and she calls him stupid. He imagines a future where she asks for his number, but then he pretends that he didn't imagine that one at all.

Deep breath. _Just because she’s pretty doesn’t mean that she’s mean,_ he tells himself, hoping the motion will stick. He hopes to have the time to give himself a longer pep talk, but unfortunately she spots him first.

“Oh, hello,” she says, smiling. “Sorry to keep you waiting! You must be Luka, picking up the cake! I have it right here for you.” She pushes it gently so that it’s closer to his side of the counter, and then bounces over to the cash register. She seems so impossibly upbeat that it brings a smile to his own face. “How are you today?”

Luka swallows. “I’m doing great, thank you,” he says, rehearsed, like how he’d done it in his head. “How are you?”

She’s still smiling that customer-service smile, but it turns into something a little confused. “I apologize, my English is not very good,” she says, in English. It’s pretty easy to tell that she’s not exactly lying – her words aren’t mispronounced, per se, but they are monotone, and she hesitates every few moments.

Luka realizes belatedly that she is speaking in English because _he had spoken in English._ Oh, rats. He hadn’t even realized.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, before he realizes that he’s still speaking in English. “Uh, I mean…” _French. French._ He’d read somewhere that it takes a few minutes for the brain to switch from thinking in one language to another, but he doesn’t have too much time, so in the name of pretty cashiers everywhere, he forces out some French. “I’m sorry, I speak French. I did not realize I was speaking in English.”

“Oh,” says the cashier, brightening up again, assumingly because she no longer has to deal with the awkwardness that a language barrier can bring. “That’s alright! That happens to my dad sometimes. English is his first language and I know some basics but, um, you know, I think I’m better with listening to it than actually speaking it. Oh, and your total is 115.43.”

“I feel that way with French,” he tells her, fishing through his bag for his wallet. He’d learned it growing up, but not nearly as frequently as he was taught to speak English. “My sentences turn into Frenglish a lot. Especially when I’m nervous.”

“Oh, I hope it wasn’t me that made you nervous,” she says, her face turning bright red. Luka is embarrassed by how much he is already starting to like her. “I know I was busy when you walked in, so I’m sorry if I looked mean!”

“It wasn’t you,” he assures her, unwilling to tell her that her concentrating face is about as far from RBF as someone can possibly get. _Adorable_ is a much better descriptor. He hands her the money, and before he can start speaking in the little Spanish that he knows, he slides the cake box into his arms. It’s heavy, expectedly, since it’s meant to feed up to eighteen people. “Thank you so much, Mademoiselle,” he says. For a brief, bizarre moment, he contemplates inviting her to Juleka’s party. _You can’t hit on cashiers,_ he tells himself. Hell, what’s he thinking? He’s _been_ a cashier before, and the flirting is always unwelcome. Always.

“Well, have a great day, Mademoiselle,” he tells her on his way out, throwing her the most confident grin he can muster over his shoulder. “You've certainly made mine better.”

* * *

She sneaks up on him.

He has his back turned, standing on a chair so that he can hang up the black-and-purple streamers on the walls. Everything needs to be perfect, especially since it's Juleka's first big birthday bash in, well, ever. (For the past few years, Juleka would have one or two friends over, sure, but this is different. This is exciting!) He hears someone come up behind him, sure, but he mainly expects it to be Alya, who apparently likes to take pictures of _everything._ It’s weird, being the subject of some of them, but he’s sure it’ll be fun to show them all to Juleka once the surprise is over.

“Do you need any help?” a voice says behind him, in English. Luka whirls around to see who’s talking to him, confusingly recognizing the voice but being unable to place it. The cashier from the bakery is smiling up at him from the ground, her cheeks tinted a little red like they had been earlier. “Not that it looks like you need it! I mean, it’s not that I’m just offering because I want to spend time with you, though, I mean, I’m sure spending time with you is super cool-!”

At some point, she devolves into embarrassed Frenglish, which is when Luka realizes he needs to stop her before she combusts. “I’m alright, but thank you,” he says. He watches her smile fade a bit, and realizes belatedly that it’s not the answer she had wanted to hear. “Unless they need you out there, maybe you could hang out,” he continues, looking back at the streamers so that she doesn’t see the silly look on his face. “I mean, it’d be cool to learn more about you.”

The words from behind him are soft. “That’d be lovely. I'm Marinette.”

(They don’t stop talking until Alya yells, “ _Juleka’s coming in! Hide! Marinette, stop flirting!_ ” almost ninety minutes later.)


End file.
